


Rusting to Breathe

by Colms



Series: Rusting to Breathe [2]
Category: Cosmere - Brandon Sanderson, Mistborn - Brandon Sanderson, Shadows of Self - Brandon Sanderson, The Alloy of Law - Brandon Sanderson, The Bands of Mourning - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Bands of Mourning spoilers, Crime Fighting, F/M, Mutual Pining, Shadows of Self spoilers, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2019-08-16 22:54:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16504352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Colms/pseuds/Colms
Summary: Shortly after The Bands of Mourning, Wayne and Marasi have some down time when an old adversary re-emerges from hiding. The True Survivorists and their charismatic leader, Kelrose Colt, may prove to be one of their most dangerous foes yet.





	1. A Sound Like Thunder

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, how many years has it been? And yet, here we are once again. I have no plan. I have no concept of what a good chapter looks like. AND YET. It's NaNoWriMo, and I need something to focus on. Part 2 of Kingdom of Rust will take place after The Bands of Mourning, so please keep in mind that there WILL be spoilers!
> 
> Now, to fix the mess of characterization that was Bands of Mourning.

Ever since the incident with the Bands, Marasi hadn’t been acting quite right around Wayne, and he couldn’t put a finger on what was wrong. First, he thought it might’ve been the fact that she had a new boyfriend, and had to come to terms with her irresistible attraction to him, Wayne. That’d cause some confusion, more like than not. Next, he thought it was jealousy of his hat. He’d never seen her in a hat, after all, at least that he could recall. Whatever it was, something had _shifted_ , and Wayne wouldn’t rest until he knew what.

(He’d had a lot of time to himself since Wax got all preoccupied with being a married man and all, and it had to be spent somehow.)

The fact remained that whenever Marasi was around him, she just wasn’t the way she had been. He’d noticed it after the botched wedding attempt, sure, but she’d been right pleasant to him after that and it ended right quick. After the firefight on the train, though?

He’d seen raging lions he’d’ve rather gotten close to. Lions, at least, were decent folk what wouldn’t shoot you in the head halfway through tea.

“You know, Wayne,” Marasi said, real conversational-like as she glared at him over the rim of her teacup. The way her teeth bit down on every word, she could’ve chewed her way through bullets. “I don’t recall inviting you to tea.”

“Aw, mate,” Wayne said, serious as the grave. “Don’t tell me you’re losing your memory, too. ’S bad enough with Wax getting older.”

On the mantlepiece, a clock ticked, the only thing breaking the silence as they stared at each other—Wayne grinning, Marasi looking five seconds away from hurling her fancy teacup at him.

Slowly, he reached out and took one of the frosted cakes from the plate in front of him and shoved the whole thing in his mouth.

In the quiet room, his chewing was painfully loud. Marasi’s gaze could have skewered him and made hemalurgic spikes of his remains.

“I really can’t blame him,” said Elanor the seamstress, sitting in between the two of them and sipping leisurely at her tea. “If I heard you had made cakes and I wasn’t invited, I’d’ve crashed your tea party, too.”

Wayne gestured as if to say ‘See, she knows what she’s talking about.’ “Besides,” Elanor continued, “I’m curious to know what he thought about the last novel we read in book club.”

Seeing the sudden shock of alarm on Marasi’s face just about made Wayne choke on his cake.

“You knew the entire time?” Marasi demanded shrilly as Wayne pounded his chest to dislodge cake crumbs from his throat, fighting back tears.

“Oh, yes. I’d know those measurements anywhere.” Elanor winked at Wayne, which only served to make him cough harder and Marasi turn redder. When he finally recovered from his thrice-daily brush with death, Elanor had already smoothly moved on to book discussion. Marasi admitted, sheepishly, that she hadn’t finished the book.

“C’mon,” Wayne chastised. “Savin’ the world’s no excuse for ignoring the pursuit of knowledge.”

“That is _so_ rich, coming from you.”

“And that ain’t an insult,” Wayne retorted with a grin.

“Well,” said Elanor, “at least you have a good reason to it. Stuck in a shop all day, there’s not much time for adventures.”

“It ain’t all it’s made out to be,” Wayne said, leaning back and clutching his hat—which had been on his lap, because he was in the presence of ladies and not at all because Marasi’d called him out on it ten minutes earlier—to his chest. “It’s a real thankless job, it is, and it’s mostly just lotsa people shooting at your lucky hat.”

“That just won’t do,” Elanor said with a mock gasp, as Marasi said, “They’re going for your _head_.”

“’S What I keep sayin’!” Wayne ignored Marasi. “A man’s just not a man without his lucky hat.”

Afternoon tea lasted for another half hour or so until Elanor excused herself to return to her shop, and Wayne stayed to help tidy up. He thought it was a right gentlemanly thing of him to do, but Marasi was largely silent as Wayne carried dishes to the kitchen and patiently began washing them.

“Alright, Wayne,” she said eventually. “I’ll bite. What are you doing?”

“Dishes. What’s it look like I’m doin’, a jig? A bloke’s gotta pull his weight!”

“Since when has that ever been your philosophy?”

Wayne’s jaw dropped open in self-righteous indignation. “Ma’am, it’s always been my philanthropy to help people. Even ones what are real rude.” He pointed a condemnatory fork in her direction. Her expression pulled into a subtle frown that told him he’d poked the lion. Again. Best play dead, in that case. Wayne shrugged. “Wax’s busy bein’ married ’n all that.”

“So you decide to bother me. What’s MeLaan up to? She clearly tolerates your presence.”

Wayne winced. Right. He’d forgotten that lionesses were the ones what went for the kill when they saw vulnerable animals. No sense of honour there, no sir. “She usually has other things goin’ on, too. What with bein’ a demigod and all.” He put a clean saucer aside, and Marasi snatched a tea towel, beginning to dry dishes with an agitation Wayne didn’t know was possible. “I ain’t seen much of anybody in a while,” he ventured carefully, knowing it was unwise to keep prodding, “and you _did_ say I could visit whenever I wanted.”

At that, she faltered. Wayne had either tamed the wild lion or he had shoved his entire head in its mouth. He decided to say his prayers, anyway, just in case it was the latter.

“Alright,” she conceded, sounding for all the world like a mother scolding an unruly child. “But I would prefer some notice. I’m busy, too, you know.”

Of course, there was a part of Wayne that knew, acutely. That was the problem, wasn’t it? Everyone else had their lives, their own worlds. Wax was married, now, and he was learning how to play the cards he’d been dealt—even _enjoying_ it. MeLaan was a demigod, at the mercy of a god’s whims, an enigma at the best of times.

And Marasi?

Well, she’d grown into her own skin a long time ago, and now, that meant outgrowing Wayne.

Not that it was a bad thing, really. Wayne supposed he hadn’t made it easy for her to feel like there was anything left in common with him. Hurt less, that way. Marasi could go her own way, annoyed and righteous and burning her own path through the world without anyone as dead weight. Besides, Wayne’d always been able to take a hit better than most folk.

“Wayne?”

With a little shake, Wayne realised he’d lapsed into silence. He put on a grin. ‘Course, it didn’t make much sense that he stuck around if he was trying to get her used to the idea of him _not_ being a part of her life anymore, but he’d never been good at logic. Rolled off him like water, it did. “Will do. So you heard anythin’ from that Colt fellow lately?”

She shook her head, that vaguely distant expression in her eyes once again. She was thinking hard about something, far away from him even though she was standing right there.

“I haven’t heard anything,” she said finally. “And that concerns me.”

“Been checking the news lately, and I ain’t seen much that sounds like it could be his group.”

Marasi nodded, her face clouding in concentration as she started putting dishes away. All the fury bled out of her, and now, she just looked thoughtful. “That’s what concerns me.”

The string of arsons had died down in the months between Martenn Belvar’s death and the Bands making their reappearance. On one hand, it was a good thing—the only fires seemed to be isolated incidents, not part of a larger problem. Wayne’d even infiltrated the fire department once to see if he could find anything else, but he’d talked one time too many about being set on fire and didn’t know he’d be welcome there again. In any case, he hadn’t found much of anything there. Whatever the True Survivorists had been up to, now it was a total blackout.

“Could always check their headquarters, see if they’re still there.”

Marasi shook her head. “Too risky. They have a full arsenal beneath the church, and I’m not inclined to see what’s happened to it. All you’d need to do is light a match down there and the whole thing would blow—not even you could survive something like that."

Wayne supposed she had a point there. But how to get involved again? Something was clearly nefarious about that group, but they would be wandering straight into the lion’s den if they tried anything too cheeky.

Lots of lion analogies lately. Seemed to be the order of the day.

“So what’re you suggesting we do?”

“I’m not sure there’s anything we _can_ do,” Marasi replied, finishing up with the last of the dishes. She crossed her arms and frowned in his general direction—not at him, this time, but at the general circumstances she could envision around her—and she sighed. “It’s far too dangerous to get involved on our own, and we don’t even have any solid evidence that could back us up if we needed the help of the constabulary.”

“Aw, mate, you say that like Wax ’n I ever go through the constabulary.”

Marasi glared. This time, at him. “We’d damn well better be going through the constabulary, Wayne, or we’re not going through with anything at all. Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am.” There really was no arguing with her on things if she got that look about her.

“We’d be poking a hornet’s nest”—now there was a good idiom—“and I’m not terribly keen on a nest of fanatics bearing down on us. Especially now that everything’s settled down and we need to get to the bottom of this Trell business.”

“Sure,” Wayne said, although he had only listened with about half an ear last time she went on one of her Trell rants. It had been half an ear literally, due to a right unfortunate accident with Ranette’s inventing equipment. Why did she have all those levers and buttons and things if they weren’t for touching, anyway?

Marasi seemed to sense he had no idea what she was referring to, so she shook her head slightly and changed gears again. “Are you going to make it to reading club again next week?”

Something about that itched at his head. Something he was supposed to remember. “What day’s that again?”

“Mar—”

“Nah, the date.”

“Oh. It’s the first of the month, I believe. Why? Do you have a prior engagement?” The way she said _prior engagement_ , it rolled off her tongue a bit like acid. He didn’t know why it stung.

“Yeah,” he answered, shifting on his feet with slight unease. “Somewhere I need to be on the first.”

Normally, Marasi wasn’t the prying sort, but this time, her eyes glimmered with something Wayne had a hard time placing. Normally with her, it was curiosity, but this time, it was something totally different. Softer, maybe, and more guarded.

“I hesitate to ask—”

“You ain’t never hesitated to ask anything before,” Wayne cut in. Marasi gave him a warning look.

“—But just what is it you do on the first? It’s every month, right?”

She was right enough about that, though Wayne couldn’t say it was very surprising she’d picked up on it. Marasi was smart like that. He scrubbed his hand across the back of his neck and busied himself with lining up the ceramic jars on Marasi’s kitchen counter. “You remember that time I told you about the bookkeeper I shot?” _Shot._ The word itself left his mouth like a bullet, leaving the bitter taste of gunpowder on his lips.

Marasi nodded, making a quiet sound of affirmation. Wayne could feel his mouth go dry as he relived that moment again, the loud _bang_ of gunfire, the sound of the man’s body hitting the hard-packed dirt, the gasp of his last rattling breaths. Shuddering, Wayne forced the memory away and gathered what was left of his wits.

“I told you I send half of whatever I make to the bloke’s family, right? The older daughter is goin’ to school here at the University now. Her ma wrote me back once sayin’ I should send the money to her, seeing as she needs it more, what with being a student ’n all.” Wayne didn’t tell many folks about this part of his history, but the ones he had—Ranette and Wax, mostly—usually cut him off at this point, making the connection from point A to point B. It was an uncomfortable subject, as he understood it, and most people just wanted to skip the details and move on to a cheerier topic.

Marasi wasn’t most people, something he knew but that always surprised him for some reason. She stayed perfectly silent, her dark eyes riveted on him with her usual warm curiosity. Wayne swallowed, feeling his mouth go dry again. He pushed the agitation down and shrugged. “The first is when I bring the money to her at the university. It’s a real ordeal, see, on account of how much the headmistress there hates me. I don’t rightly know why, but it might have something to do with the fact that she knows all the girls’d be swooning over me given the chance. They’d have a right riot on their hands.”

“Uh-huh. I’m sure that’s the reason, and not that you’re breaking into an all-girls dorm.”

To be completely fair, it wasn’t exactly that, either. “And the fact I shot her daddy dead. That don't sit well with most folk.”

“So why do you go there in person if it upsets both of you? It seems unnecessarily cruel.”

She’d dropped into interrogation mode now, settling into her questions like it was second nature. Wayne felt uncomfortably scrutinized under her gaze, but there was nowhere he could run to—Wax was busy, always busy, Ranette only tolerated him on the best of days, and MeLaan didn't really _talk_ , not about anything important, simply because she couldn’t. Marasi, though? Even though there were moments when he was convinced she hated him, there she would be with her big brown eyes, so intelligent and kind.

Wayne shifted under her scrutiny.

“I just… feel like I gotta.”

“Both you and Wax are such masochists.” Marasi sighed, pressing her palms together as if in prayer and holding them close to her face. Her gaze plucked him into little pieces, and again, he wondered what she was seeing. She saw the big picture, and from there, broke it down into the details, restructured it into something that made sense.

He didn’t think even Marasi could piece this mess back together. She was bright and capable, but not even she could conduct miracles.

“This isn’t healthy, you know,” she continued. “You could probably have a monthly stipend sent to the University, and it would be less traumatizing for both of you. If it’s that bad for you, imagine how she feels.”

Wayne knew, partially. But part of him still felt like he _needed_ her vitriol. “Yeah,” he said quietly, not really knowing what else to say.

“May I come with you?” Marasi asked. He glanced up in shock.

“What?”

“May I come with you, next time?” She barrelled on while Wayne floundered. “You’re well within your right to say no. It’s just, they know me at the university and I should be able to get you in without your usual… subterfuge. If you think it would be all right, I could also talk to the daughter.” Marasi gave him a sort of lopsided look. “If she can be reasoned with, it might do both of you good to have some actual dialogue. Not just this… masochistic back and forth you have right now.”

No-one had really ever taken interest in his struggles like this, except for Wax.

“I dunno, Mara…” His voice came out a little quieter than he’d been expecting. He didn’t like that. As a Bloodmaker, as Wayne, he was used to being nearly invulnerable. Whatever Marasi had done, she’d found a weak spot in the nearly bulletproof facade he usually constructed. “I shot her daddy when she was a little girl. She’s got every reason to hate me, and I deserve everything she can throw my way.”

“Do you really want to keep feeling like this?”

Wayne stayed silent.

Marasi sighed, and her eyes softened. “All right. Let me put it this way: do you want _her_ to keep feeling like this? If you don’t think you deserve to move on, doesn’t _she_ deserve that chance?”

Rusts. When she had a point, she had a point.

“I know you’re right, my brain just don’t like that you’re right.”

“You’d best get used to it,” she said with a cheeky confidence that brought a shadow of his usual smile back to his face.

* * *

Wayne left shortly after—he had mostly managed to muster his usual humour when he was saying his goodbyes, but then found that he’d just left himself alone with his thoughts, and that was right unpleasant. Only one cure to that.

The bar was called The Grinning Kandra, and it was a right dump. Some folks had tried to get it shut down a handful of years ago when it opened. Something about sacrilege and ‘profaning the name of the Faceless Immortals’, but those folks’d clearly never actually met a kandra, ‘cause the one that he knew had started a couple of fights in that very bar and was pretty fond of the place in general.

Wayne greeted the bartender by name—Errol, a right excellent bloke—and asked how the kids were.

“Don’t got none and you know it,” Errol said, which was a rustin’ lie. He had two real pretty daughters and had been convinced he needed to keep Wayne away from them for months. Seein’ as Wayne was back on the market and a _very_ eligible gentleman, Errol knew he wouldn’t be able to keep his daughters off of Wayne. Or. Well. At least, Wayne was somewhat back on the market. Maybe.

It was complicated.

Wayne ordered two fingers of whiskey and slumped against the bar, tipping his hat over his face. He wasn’t really looking forward to Marasi joining him for his monthly meeting with Allriandre. It was nice that she was worried, after a fashion. And, it was sort of nice that someone was taking interest in his problems.

Just, did it have to be Marasi?

“—Colt starting to move again.”

A low murmur caught Wayne’s attention, and he quietly turned his attention over to his left, where Errol was wiping down the bar. Someone was sitting at the far end, their head hanging low as their finger traced the rim of their glass.

“Know when?” Now that voice, Wayne recognised. Errol had turned his head a little to hide the movement of his mouth, but it was his voice, clear as copper.

“Soon,” the other person at the bar said. They had a gravelly sort of voice, sort of tenor.

They kept talking. Wayne perked up in interest. “He’ll call you when it’s time.” The accent was what really stood out to him; it definitely had a bit of the Roughs cadence. A little bit of drawl over the vowels, but a clipped quality to the consonants that was very Elendel. It was the kind of voice he heard in folks who had moved out to the Basin from the Roughs a couple of years ago, on someone who had learned enough of the city accent to fake fitting in, but hadn’t been around long enough to fool everyone.

The person tipped their hat to Errol. A Roughs-style hat, too, but city clothes. Real clean and nicely tailored. Not Roughs at all. Then, they stood and left the bar.

Wayne tried to catch sight of them, but their face was shadowed under the brim of the hat. Quickly, he slid out of his chair and elbowed his way back out of the bar.

He got outside fast enough to see the individual shrug on a tasseled coat and lurch into the air, disappearing into the mists.

_Rusts._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You thought there wasn't going to be any actual plot in this chapter, didn't you?!
> 
> Well, so did I, so you're not that far off, really.


	2. Wasteland, Baby!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wayne and Marasi go to university while Wax is busy being married. It goes about as well as you'd expect!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GONDOR HAS NO BETA. GONDOR NEEDS NO BETA. This is NOT worth the eight months that I've had a partial chapter sitting in my drafts, but here it is, anyway!

“There are plenty of people named Colt, Wayne,” said Marasi matter-of-factly, checking the tiny pocket watch she had attached to the inside of her coat. “And I don’t mean it to be dismissive. I just mean that there's nothing we can do until there’s some sort of proof that the True Survivorists are actually back and they pose a threat.”

The carriage hit a bump and knocked Marasi forward, tumbling halfway into Wayne’s lap. He steadied her, hands on her arms, and she quickly settled back on her side of the carriage with as much dignity as she could muster.

“Sure, but they were bein’ real shifty ‘bout it. Ain’t nobody act like that unless they’re hiding something.”

“I don’t doubt that. However”—she smoothed the skirt of her dress, picking off invisible lint—“I already told you I’d prefer to go through the legal channels for this. If we’re going to do this right, we can’t base our decisions off of ‘they were suspicious’. The constabulary is going to tell you exactly what I just did.”

Wayne slumped over dramatically in his seat and blew out his cheeks. “I know it’s boring,” said Marasi. “But we can’t keep doing these things Wax’s way. The prosecutor’s office is cracking down on constables. You don’t want to get fined, do you?”

“All your sensible-ness is rubbin’ off on Wax,” Wayne complained. “He ain’t wanna do anything fun, neither.”

“That’s Steris’ influence, not mine,” Marasi pointed out. “And I would say it’s been good for him.”

Wayne grumbled something into the collar of his shirt and Marasi shook her head. She knew it was difficult for him to grasp that his best friend was changing, and growing up. As best she could understand, Lessie wasn’t much of a hampering factor to Wax’s relationship with Wayne, and didn’t slow him down in his work as a lawman. If anything, she encouraged his work as a lawman. But, she also encouraged his bad habits. Steris both encouraged Wax’s work and better habits as both a lawman and a house lord.

It was good for him. Wax was moving forward.

Wayne, it seemed, was having trouble with that.

Their conversation at Wax and Steris’ first wedding had been… illuminating. Wayne was a person stuck in his own past, someone who didn’t quite realise that he was _capable_ of moving forward. For someone who changed personalities the way he did hats, it was amazing—and stupefying—that he was so averse to change. During that conversation, Marasi thought that she’d finally gotten through to Wayne.

And then she found him and MeLaan in various states of undress in the back of the train car, and all hope flew out the window. After that moment, any progress they’d made seemed to skid to a halt and backtrack like a train at the end of its rails. He was far more crass than she’d ever seen him, and more insufferable, and…

Marasi stopped that line of thinking before she could pursue it any further. Remembering the whole situation around the Bands just served to incense her. They had been getting along so well during the Belvar case, and then Wayne started flip-flopping almost immediately after they seemed to make any real, genuine progress.

She tried to understand it, but every time she did, it just upset her. So, she did what she did every time she began to mull it over again: tucked it away for examination at another time.

Luckily, before any of her agitation could resurface—or she decided to start beating some sense into Wayne’s thick skull—the carriage lurched to a stop and the cabbie tapped on the roof to let them know that they had arrived at their destination. Marasi took a deep breath and steadied herself. She had to be level-headed for this, not annoyed.

“Y’don’t have to do this, you know.” Wayne fidgeted, refusing to look at her. He had his hat in his lap and fussed with the brim.

Marasi frowned, examining Wayne’s body language. He determinedly refused to make eye contact with her, something he normally wasn’t averse to, and he twisted the brim of his hat to and fro. She had seen men who looked the way he did right now: men who knew they were going into a trial expecting a guilty verdict, men who knew they were facing a shooting gallery.

“I know I don’t have to do this,” she pointed out. “If you don’t want me here, say the word.”

“That ain’t it,” he said. The fidgeting increased in intensity as he scowled down at his hat as if it had offended him somehow. “I ‘preciate that you’re willin’ to do this. It’s just…” He trailed off.

“You’re uncomfortable having me there.”

“That ain’t it either, exactly.” Finally, he glanced up at her. “Like you said earlier. I feel like… I feel like I gotta do this. As penance. I did somethin’ unspeakable to her daddy, and I deserve whatever she can throw at me.” He managed a shadow of a smile. “Keeps me humble, y’know?”

The smile wilted away, and with it, the rest of Marasi’s previous irritation.

“I know, Wayne. If you’d rather do this alone today—”

There was another knock from the cabbie outside the carriage, and his voice came from outside, muted. “Sorry, folks, but I gotta ask you to pay extra if you’re going to keep sitting inside.”

Wayne got the door and helped Marasi out, helping her navigate around a puddle directly beneath the carriage door. They thanked the cabbie and he continued on his way, leaving Marasi and Wayne to stand outside the gates of the university in the still-chilly spring air.

“As I was saying.” Marasi continued, rubbing her arms against the cold. “It’s fine if you would rather do this alone today. I’ll be available next month. And the next. Whenever you’re ready.”

Wayne blinked at her. Marasi could feel the gears turning, calculating a clever comment or innuendo. Something to break the mood, configure himself back into the whimsical enigma he appeared to be.

“You’re real decent folk, Mara,” he said, with that lopsided half-smile he gave only on the rarest occasions.

Marasi’s stomach flip-flopped. Now was _not_ the time!

Luckily, Wayne continued. “Maybe later, then. Not that I don’t appreciate your offer, it’s just… I don’t think I’m ready yet. Don’t think Allriandre’d take too kindly to you, neither.”

“All right.” Marasi patted Wayne’s arm and turned to see if there were any cabs around.

“But if you’d put in a good word with the headmistress…”

She huffed a sigh, but it was more amused than annoyed. “I see how it is. Fine. I’ll wait just outside, shall I?”

“If y’don’t mind.”

They proceeded into the residential area, receiving a couple of odd looks from passers-by until they realised that both Wayne and Marasi didn’t quite fit the image of a student—Marasi in partial constable’s uniform, and Wayne in his… well, Wayne-ness.

Marasi had never lived on residence herself, but a number of her friends had, so she’d had more than a handful of run-ins with the headmistress. Luckily, Madam Penfor had loved Marasi. Hopefully, her hatred for Wayne and her love for Marasi would balance each other out.

The ladies’ residence hall was a stately white building, university students coming and going, talking and giggling amongst themselves. Some of them spared curious glances for Marasi and Wayne as they passed by. They went up the stairs and Marasi paused by the doors, stepping aside to let some students out.

“Do me a favour and let me do all the talking? Surely you can see why Madam Penfor might not be very fond of you.”

“Hey now, it just ain't right to kick a man while he's down. And ‘sides. Madam Penfor loves me, so that's patently untrue.”

“Patently…? Where did you pick that one up?” Marasi supposed she shouldn't have been too surprised. Wayne’s vocabulary was more complex than she often gave him credit for. She strongly believed he liked to throw uncommon words at her on rare occasions just to keep her on her toes.

“One ‘a your fancy law books. Wanted to try it out.” He smacked his lips a handful of times. “Tastes sorta musty. Like a sandwich what’s been forgotten in your pocket too long. Hints of baloney, pocket lint, n’ stuff.”

“You’re stalling.”

They still stood on the steps outside the residence hall, lingering at the door.

“Not used to comin’ in this way,” said Wayne. “Not as myself, leastaways.” His voice dropped to a quick mumble. “And sure as sin not sober.”

On any other day, Marasi might have chastised him, but today she held her tongue.

“You’re sure you want to go in there alone?”

“I ain’t never sure of anything. It’s part of my charm.”

Marasi pulled the door open and stood aside so Wayne could enter first. “Double negative,” she pointed out as he passed her, tipping his hat as he did. She was rewarded with a small smile that held a little of Wayne’s usual humour.

* * *

 

Madam Penfor’s considerable form could be easily mistaken for a statue, if not for the furious scribbling of her pen, and the beady roving of her eyes at any signs of movement. Her pin-curled salt-and-pepper hair was tucked into a no-nonsense updo, and her expression was stony as her eyes locked on Wayne.

“You—” She started.

“Good morning, Madam Penfor,” Marasi chirped pleasantly. She briskly strode over to the woman’s desk, offering her most demure, authority-pleasing smile.

Madam Penfor twitched, her hand clasping at her pen so tightly Marasi was certain she was mere moments from snapping it in half.

“And Miss Colms. This is quite a surprise. I had heard rumours that you were running around with”—she darted a sharp glance at Wayne—"some _individuals_ from the Roughs.” The way she snipped her words short, Marasi knew exactly what she meant. “You do know why he is here, do you not?”

“Yes,” said Marasi. “I’m here to supervise. A form of Terris justice, with a focus on reform rather than punishment.” The lie rolled off her tongue like honey, syrupy-sweet.

“But…” Madam Penfor lowered her voice to speak in a hush, as if Wayne could not hear even though he was right there. “He’s a murderer.”

“And he’s put away dozens of murderers since. It isn’t as if he’s not owning up to it, and I daresay he’s trying to do right by the family he wronged.”

“He upsets her! It’s terribly traumatic for the girl.”

Marasi prickled at this. “I somehow feel like her wellbeing is the lesser of your concerns, if you have repeatedly let him in. I suspect,” she minced, “that you often get something out of it, yourself. Are you going to let him in or not?”

Madam Penfor’s expression twisted and soured. “I see the rumours were not unfounded. You’ve picked up a lot from these ruffians.” The woman stood in a swift motion, causing her to tower over both Wayne and Marasi. Without another word except to one of the dormitory girls, Madam Penfor led them to the visiting room. “Will you be joining them?” She finally asked Marasi, who shook her head, and nudged Wayne’s arm—either as a good luck, or a ‘don’t rust this up’.

Wayne disappeared into the room, and Madam Penfor clunked all the way back to her desk, leaving Marasi to linger in the hall.

Several minutes later, a young woman approached the door. She was pretty, but this was heavily overshadowed by the inscrutable storm clouds crossing her expression. Her curled blonde hair was tied back with a red ribbon, and she wore a fashionable blue jacket and skirt that were just shy of daring. Marasi didn’t have to wonder where the money came from for such fine tailoring. Although Marasi had been expecting a poisonous glance or some sort of reaction, the girl did not pay any attention to her and instead entered the room silently.

Marasi knew she would probably not be waiting outside for very long, but she also knew it would be an uncomfortable, anxiety-ridden wait. In childhood, she had become quite accustomed to those, until her Allomantic ability was realised. It had been a crushing disappointment, in a world where people could all but fly and stop time, that her special ability was to stand still while the world moved around her. Her one chance to be useful in her father’s eyes, utterly squandered.

Now, Marasi had a far more practical outlook. She brought a small glass vial of metal shavings out of one pocket, and a flask—filled with water, thank you—out of the other, and downed the metal with a generous gulp. One of the dormitory residents passed by Marasi and shot her a scandalized look, as the flask certainly didn’t look like it contained water, and Marasi merely raised it at her, admitting that perhaps Wax and Wayne had rubbed off on her more than she’d like to confess.

With that, Marasi burned cadmium. Before she started working with Wayne and Wax, she used to burn it as effectively as she could, expanding time in her bubble as much as possible. Now, she liked to keep it at a pace that she could still watch the motion around her and react to anything happening in her vicinity.

Today, she was rewarded with a flicker of movement on her right, further into the hall of the dormitories. A few university girls congregated there, posting flyers on a notice board. A flash of colour on the board caught her attention, and she dropped the cadmium bubble. The girls continued on their way, chatting and laughing, and continued on their way.

Marasi waited a few beats, and then approached the notice board. The blood in her veins chilled as she snatched the flyers from where they were tacked, the sigil that had initially caught her eye clear as day.

A spear crossed with a clenched fist. The hand was covered with scars. She recognized this symbol—the crates in the True Survivorist bunker had worn the very same decal of defiance.

Mere moments later, the blonde girl left the room, clutching something so tightly in her hand that her knuckles were white. It appeared to have a gold chain, like a locket or a pocketwatch, but Marasi could not see what it was. Her expression was colder than it had been, and she wandered back down the hall, not stopping to acknowledge her fellows, and not stopping at Madam Penfor’s desk.

Marasi waited for Wayne to exit the room, as well, and after a short while, he did. He had a handkerchief out and he wiped at his face. Immediately, Marasi assumed that he had been crying, but his eyes were dry and his expression was merely drawn thin, eyes sunken with exhaustion.

She elected to stick the flyers in her purse and mark them a later problem. Right now, she had a friend who looked very lost, and terribly, terribly alone. She wandered back over to him.

“…How did it go?” Marasi ventured, not entirely convinced she wanted to know.

“I need a drink.”

“Fair enough.”

* * *

 

There were plenty of pubs around the university, and Wayne blessedly chose one that wasn’t entirely disreputable. There, they sat at a wobbly wooden table in the silence, as it was barely noon and thus there were fewer customers around.

“Well,” Wayne said, attempting his usual cavalier tone. It fell flat. “She spat at me this time, which is new. Guess that’s an improvement.”

“If that’s an improvement, I’m not sure I want to know how your other meetings have gone.”

“Let’s see,” Wayne leaned back in his squeaking chair, letting the brim of his hat shadow his face and his eyes drift closed. He had surprisingly nice features. A sharp nose, smothered in a very faint smattering of freckles, prominent cheekbones, and lashes that any girl would envy. “She called me a murderer. Then she showed me a picture of her daddy. Then she got me to confess that I murdered her daddy, like she does every time. Then she spat in my face and told me I don’t deserve to live. Didn’t say it as nice, though.”

The waitress arrived with a glass of whiskey for Wayne and a cup of tea for Marasi.

“Oh.” Marasi said, after the waitress left.

“Yeah, you could say that.”

“How long have you been doing this? Bringing her a stipend, personally, I mean.”

“A year and a bit.” There it was again, the twinge of a tortured man, like an out-of-tune violin string. She’d heard it the first time he told her what he did, admitted his crimes like she was his confessional, his priest, his only hope of salvation.

“Aren’t you tired of it, Wayne?” He glanced up at her, meeting her eyes. “Isn’t it exhausting, having to carry this around with you all the time?”

“‘S what I saddled myself with, mate. ‘S what happens when you make an arse of yourself.” Wayne shrugged. “Sure, it might not be nice, ‘n it might not be pretty, but neither’s what I did to her daddy. It’d be awful irresponsible of me not to do something about it.”

Marasi sighed, and busied herself with taking a sip of her tea. “If you didn’t, it’d make you like the folks you put away?”

Wayne was silent, and Marasi read it as: ‘I don’t see myself as any different anyway.’

They sat in that silence for a while. In the background, glasses clinked as someone in the kitchen washed dishes, and the waitress hummed an off-key tune as she swept the floor at the other end of the pub.

“And what if _she_ wants to move on?” Marasi asked, her voice quiet. Wayne waited a while to respond, flipping through answers in his head.

“Then that’s what she deserves. But I don’t think she’s gonna be the one to tell me that.”

“You’re not really giving her a choice,” Marasi pointed out. Wayne scrubbed his hands over his face.

“And what d’ you suggest? We sit down and sing songs ‘round a fire?”

“Something like that.”

“And d’ you think she’s gonna be okay with that?”

“No,” Marasi said bluntly. “Most people aren’t willing to put in the work it takes to mediate. Especially not in the case of a murder.” Wayne visibly flinched at the word, but Marasi continued, keeping her tone matter-of-fact. “But she deserves to make that choice for herself.”

“Alright.” Wayne downed all of his whiskey in one gulp, and then dragged his hat down onto his chest as he slumped in his chair, clearly done with the conversation. “So what’d you find on the posting board? You looked like you’d seen someone’s naughty portraits when I walked out.”

Rolling her eyes, Marasi pulled the flyers out of her purse and shoved them across the table. He always seemed to be his most inappropriate after they had any sort of emotional talk.

“’Looking for guidance? Survivorist councilling on campus. Take back control, like the Survivor did,’” Wayne read from the papers. There wasn’t a lot more information on them, like a name or a place to go. “Huh.”

“Yeah.”

“And the symbol.”

_“Yeah_ .”

“Hey, Mara, remember when you said—”

“Do not.”

“—that plenty of people were named Colt—”

“Rusts, Wayne.”

“—and that we needed ‘some sort of proof’?”

“Wait. Do you smell smoke?”

“—I think we got that proof you were lookin’ for. Wait, do I smell what?”

“Smoke. Is something burning in the kitchen?” Marasi stood up, suddenly on high alert. The smell had only gotten stronger since Wayne started teasing her. She peeked over the bar, through the door of the kitchen, but there didn’t seem to be any smoke coming from the stoves.

“You know I can’t smell worth a couple of peas. I don’t smell anything.”

Then the sirens started up.

Marasi and Wayne wandered out of the pub to see several fire-carriages race over the cobblestones, a Tineye perched on top and pointing out where to go. A number of blocks over, a thick column of oily black smoke rose into the sky. Marasi and Wayne exchanged glances, and Wayne pulled aside another bystander, a young man with an impressive moustache.

“Hey, what do you reckon is over there?”

“Oh, it’s mostly a residential area,” said the young man, tugging his moustache. “A couple of shops, but I think the only interesting thing over there is—”

“The Yomen library,” Marasi finished. She knew it well, having spent many an hour poring over books in that library. Of course, it was no secret that the Yomens came from a long line of Sliverists, and thus the theological opposite of the Survivorists.

Marasi met Wayne’s eyes. She felt like this time, she didn’t need confirmation for the sick, sinking feeling she felt in her gut. “They’re back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all, I have no idea how consistent I'll be with writing this, but if you're out there, if you're still reading (Emily), I appreciate YOU, and I did this for YOU. And also because I need to get this sh*t finished before Sando cranks out the last book and makes this completely non-canon-compliant forever. 
> 
> I have a plot outline written out now, and all you need to know about it is that the last bullet point says "WHAT COULD GO WRONG IN THIS CLUSTER FUCK OF A PLOT".


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